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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29517672">gut feelings</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aglowSycophant/pseuds/aglowSycophant'>aglowSycophant</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Vampire: The Masquerade</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Vampire Politics</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 16:31:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,305</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29517672</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aglowSycophant/pseuds/aglowSycophant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <i>She runs her eyes along the lines of his face – sharp cheekbones, straight nose, stern stare and scowling lips; he had never been sociable. He had always been serious, as if the world was a puzzle to solve. Something to win.</i>
  </p>
  <p>
    <i>But his eyes, serpentine and cold, didn’t make her think of him at all.</i>
  </p>
</blockquote>Celestine has a bad feeling about this.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>not me accidentally getting attached to minor characters in my campaigns</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>"...You never had a sire?" he asks, tilting his head just so as he watches her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No, Mister Fallow," she answers with a laugh, brushing locks of hair from her face. "Not really. Never a true one."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That's quite unfortunate, Celestine," he says after a pause. "I... Haven't spoken to mine, in a while." He turns his head towards the window, watching the city below. His </span>
  <em>
    <span>manse</span>
  </em>
  <span> was positioned nicely for that. All of Manhattan... Below him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Celestine understands the tradition of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>manse</span>
  </em>
  <span> well, he assumes – although she was not Tzimisce, she spent enough time around them, and that was enough for him – and so she had brought him a gift. A painting of the Newark skyline, where he had lived for most of his life.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Until recently, she supposes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You left, didn't you?" she asks, tone soft. "Your sire."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He had died, actually," he answers and, quietly, Celestine says, "Oh." Clearing his throat, he says, "It's not that bad, truthfully. I... I do miss him, but it... Made leaving easier."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Did it?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He nods. Celestine looks away from the window and at him, something unknown in her stare.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I suppose that's why leaving didn't hurt much, for me," she says. "I didn't... Have ties there. Not really."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Your pack?" he asks. Celestine looks away. "Were they not...?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"They died," she says, "Is all. And it wasn't safe, any longer. So I..."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I understand," he says, and she nods dully. "Really. I do."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No one here seems to like each other much," she comments quietly. "I don't know why."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Backstabbers," he says. "They all are, really, but it's safer. Don't... Get in their way. For power."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Celestine laughs, humorlessly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Easier said than done, isn't it? You've... Taken me on as your own, haven't you? And so..."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"And they may see you as a liability, but I trust in your strength. Don't you?" he says, watching her. "I wouldn't have taken you on otherwise."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You didn't know me," she says, "And you don't, still. Not really." After a pause, Celestine adds, "I don't mean to offend, Mister Fallow, but..."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No," he says, cutting her off. "I understand. Truthfully, I am... Of the ideology that everyone deserves a second chance."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"And you are Seneschal?" she says. When his gaze narrows, Celestine says, "I mean, Mister Fallow, I... You just called them all backstabbers, no? Would that not..?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm sure," he says, "That one day, that will be the death of me... But Celestine, I would rather die kind than live a monster, wouldn't you?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Celestine stares, and she can't find the words within her to answer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Now, truly – for starters, you really do need to stop calling me 'Mister Fallow'. Would it not be odd if I kept calling you Miss Abbott? Larkin is fine, and, furthermore – you’ve been stepping on Calvane’s toes recently, haven’t you? In terms of domain and all – he hasn’t said anything, of course; he doesn’t have much of a spine, in that regard – but once you’ve been properly let loose, you need to learn these things. Do you understand?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She chews at the inside of her lip. Calvane, that one... The odd-eyed Ventrue from Sacramento. They’d never spoken, really – but he had seemed polite. She hadn’t realized at all, truthfully.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Domains and territory... Territory and domains. It was a bit foreign to her – to cut up a city so cleanly like that, Celestine didn’t understand. Or, rather, she did, but...</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But things were different, and now they are not.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mi––Larkin,” she corrects, and the snake-eyed man looks her way. “Where would I be... Free to feed, then?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My domain works fine,” he hums softly. “Wherever I’ve taken you, you should be fine. Ravenscroft shouldn’t mind either, as long as you aren’t poking around in his havens.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...Well, that’s disrespectful,” she says. “Isn’t it? Entering his haven like that; I assume I’d be invited in.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t believe you’re much of a clubber regardless,” Larkin comments idly, looking away. “But the principle still stands... And stay out of Clements’s hair, would you? He’s already predisposed to dislike you; I don’t need you making enemies of him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Enemies. Allies.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was like chess, and Celestine had never considered herself good at board games.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course,” she mumbles, unsure of what else to say. A pause, and she musters, “He seems polite.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Seems,” Larkin echoes, “Is the key word here. I’m sure he’s a wonderful man, if you’re on his side. As it stands, he’s unpredictable and too... Too haughty, really, for much else. I understand distrusting Ravenscroft, but that is no reason to...”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Celestine had seen him before. Ravenscroft. Ambrose, as he’d insist she’d call him – </span>
  <em>
    <span>Fallow’s like my brother and all,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he had said, lip curled back into a Cheshire grin, </span>
  <em>
    <span>which would mean I’m like your uncle, right, Celestine? Call me Ambrose.</span>
  </em>
  <span> The way he said it made her skin crawl – but she had seen him in Queens where he shouldn’t have been, shirt unkempt, red lipstick stains on his jawline. The smell in the air – rainfall; beneath it – expensive perfume and blood.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She didn’t know what business he had there, and she wasn’t in any sort of place to find out. Perhaps she was a Cainite and an elder, too, but what she wasn’t was stupid – and so she never mentioned it, and she hoped Ambrose never did, either. She hoped he didn’t remember.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had looked at her like decoration, something to hang up on the wall.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In three hundred years, a man’s gaze had never scared her so.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” she lies, “There really isn’t.” He made her think of cobras: the thought of him had filled her with unease – why, she didn’t know; didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>care</span>
  </em>
  <span> to know – but there was something in the way he had looked at her, and... “Clements is being irrational. All the Tremere here are, truly.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was a safety precaution – she had heard about it through a thrall who had heard about it through an Anarch that had been displaced, and now they were pouring into Brooklyn – an area that wasn’t theirs at all, but they had nowhere to go. It was adapt or die, she supposed, and that she was in a similar situation all the same.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She runs her eyes along the lines of his face – sharp cheekbones, straight nose, stern stare and scowling lips; he had never been sociable. He had always been serious, as if the world was a puzzle to solve. Something to win.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But his eyes, serpentine and cold, didn’t make her think of him at all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was Ambrose she thought of, looming over the two like a guillotine.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I have a bad feeling about this,</span>
  </em>
  <span> she wants to say.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Celestine cannot bring herself to say anything at all.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“I wanted to talk to you,” Pierce says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The two are waiting outside a Pizza Hut, open far later than it needed to be. Celestine never understood the appeal of it, but she has been dead far longer than she has been alive. Pierce eats sparingly because he can, but his skin is pale and white like a drained corpse, and neither of them fit in here, wearing light formalwear in the dead of winter when there was no need to at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So I had assumed,” she answers. The look he gives her is flat, and she pays it no mind: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but this isn’t a casual outing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” he mutters, snow falling in his hair, “It isn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pulls a pack of cigarettes from her purse and lights one. Taking a drag for the gesture alone, Celestine asks, “So? What is it, then? Confessing your love?” She lets out a little laugh when his lip twitches, biting back a comment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” he mutters again after a pause, drawing a shaky breath of cold air into his long dead lungs – the exhale is a puff of vapor out his mouth. “Merely, I had wished to speak to you about what you knew about the former management in this city.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The old Princedom, you mean?” she asks, and he hums his agreement. “Well, I know what you know. The Prince was a backstabber and the Seneschal was a fool. The Sheriff is lost and the Keeper has disappeared. Do you mean specifics?” Without waiting for an answer, Celestine continues: “Fallow didn’t tell me much about internal operations, but I also knew where I could and couldn’t stick my nose. That’s all there is to it. Had I know about Ravenscroft’s plot, I would have said something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were gut feelings. She knew that, and she wondered if anyone else had those. Aubermont – she knew he was odd, but not wholly unpleasant. They had talked at Elysium, but they were never friends. Kindred didn’t have friends, merely allies, is what she had learned. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Aubermont, she didn’t get any gut feelings about him at all. Valentin Aubermont was a little awkward, a little shy, but nothing more. He was professional and confident where it mattered – but maybe he knew his place, and maybe he didn’t. It didn’t matter to her, no more than it mattered to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...Are you certain, Abbott?” Pierce presses. His gaze is cold, piercing – like he’s trying to look within her and wring the answer out from her, but Celestine diffuses it with a laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have no ties to either of them anymore,” she answers. “Had I known, I believe I would have been killed with the rest of them, no?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“About the same,” Pierce mutters, “As what I’ve garnered from Iglesias. Burke knew the most, I suppose.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suppose,” she echoes lightly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes she wondered why Larkin didn’t tell her. If he didn’t know, or if he wanted to protect her. Both were likely, in her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it didn’t matter. Larkin was dead, acidic stain on the linoleum. Ambrose was dust, spread out on the floor somewhere in Queens where he was swept up and chucked away. Antoinette was rotting flesh, thrown in a trash bag for disposal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>None of them were alive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hampshire’s childe,” she speaks up after a pause, cutting off Pierce when he opens his mouth to speak, “I remember he was always very meek. Both of them were.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm,” hums Pierce.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wonder what happened to him,” Celestine mutters, staring up at the falling snow. “If anything. Maybe he died.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Pierce comments, “If he is or not... But my sire had told me you can tell a good thaumaturge by the look in their eye, and when Ambrose died, it... The last I saw him was right after.” He shifts, gives Celestine a hard look. “The way he carried himself would frighten a lesser man. I feel that if he had seen me, he would have done something dangerous.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Were you hiding?” she asks, taking another drag.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was walking to the Staten chantry,” he explains, “And I came across him on the way back. He seemed lost in thought, but volatile. We were on opposite sides of the street. Were we on the same, and I believe only one of us would have made it to our destinations.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What business did he have in Staten?” Staten Island wasn’t a place where he would have been expected, she was certain. The young Tremere was studious, but he wasn’t Tremere. Not truly; never truly. “If even his sire wasn’t...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hampshire refused contact,” Pierce says curtly, “But we had never properly contacted Rivers. Blame not the son for the sins of the father, but always be wary. As it stands, however, no – he didn’t want a thing to do with us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fanciful way to say nothing good,” she comments dryly, and Pierce sighs. “Regardless. It’s... I never spoke to him much. We’d see one another at Elysium, but nothing more.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...You know an awful lot of Kindred, don’t you?” Pierce asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do,” she says, slight edge to her tone, “Why, is that an issue?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s a comment, Abbott.” He sighs, the gesture forced. “Still. I find this city unfamiliar, even though I’ve lived here for decades. I’ve been gone for too long, then, but...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I understand.” Searching for stars among the falling snow, Celestine finds clouds and nothing more. “I find myself wondering...” Her voice trails off and she swallows hard. “I wonder, sometimes, what the future will hold. If it will be like the past in different dress, or a total renovation...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t say,” Pierce answers, his tone curt, “And neither can you. The future is what we make of it – and, Abbott.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks down from the sky to meet his gaze, eyes dark like coal – “I wanted to ask you if you would accept the title of Seneschal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...What?” she breathes, because Celestine isn’t sure if she heard that right. “Clements, I’m sorry, but...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re an ambitious woman,” he states, “Aren’t you? And you have connections throughout the city, childe of the old Seneschal and relatively well-versed in politics despite your age. For a neonate, you’re... Influential.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A gut feeling tells her he is suspicious. A gut feeling tells her he is scared. A gut feeling tells her he is keeping his enemies close and their enemies closer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I had assumed your sire had trained you the best he could,” Pierce continues, “And so, I had assumed no one else would be fit for such a role.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Burke?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Burke accepted the mantle of Primogen,” he explains, “And while I’m certain you would be a wonderful fit for Primogen, I do not believe there’s enough of a Gangrel presence within the city to warrant one... However. You... Are not someone I would be willing to lose.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The biggest promotion of her unlife outside a Pizza Hut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure,” she says, offering a smile, “I’m in.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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